


Battle Scars

by elena_stidham



Category: Banana Fish (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Anxiety Attacks, Comfort/Angst, Fluff and Angst, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Inspired by Fanart, M/M, Panic Attacks, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Scars, look there are not enough angst tags for the Banana Fish fandom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-23
Updated: 2019-02-23
Packaged: 2019-11-04 06:20:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,454
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17893139
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elena_stidham/pseuds/elena_stidham
Summary: Forever is never an empty promise or compromise. Learning how to be loved falls somewhere between both.





	Battle Scars

**Author's Note:**

> UPDATE: PLEASE LOOK AT THIS INCREDIBLE ARTWORK MADE INSPIRED BY MY FIC I AM WEEPING WITH JOY
> 
> https://twitter.com/nakimooshi/status/1099390571985088513
> 
> I AM SO MOVED AND AT SUCH A LOSS FOR WORDS I CANNOT HANDLE HOW EMOTIONAL THIS MAKES ME OKAY THANK YOU FOR LETTING ME SCREAM PLEASE ENJOY THE FIC
> 
>  
> 
> WARNINGS FOR: Language, sex, PTSD
> 
> SONGS USED TO GET IN THE MOOD: “1AM” From Animal Crossing: New Leaf
> 
> Yes, before you ask, this was inspired by artwork again. Still sevenflats because damn it I love their work I am a whole ass mess for it
> 
> https://twitter.com/nakimooshi/status/1098263703206584320
> 
> I heard the song 1AM and it gave me this emotion that I couldn’t quite place anywhere. It was almost nostalgic, innocent, harrowing, heavy yet lightweight and I just couldn’t figure out how it made me feel – that is, until one morning, at one in the morning, recovering from an anxiety attack triggered by my own PTSD, I realised how I felt. I have no idea how Nintendo was able to capture such an emotion and then throw it into a game like fucking Animal Crossing, but they did it. 
> 
> So with that, I wanted to write a fic where Ash felt uncomfortable with his body during sex – especially with all the scars he definitely has – but I couldn’t make a whole fic about it work, you know? That’s more of a headcanon kind of thing with me. Then once again, sevenflats posted the beautiful photo I linked above, and I suddenly knew exactly what I wanted to write about. 
> 
> With that, here’s this fic. My tumblr is elenastidham, and in the bio there’s links you can follow to support me and my other works further. Thank you so much for reading, and I hope you enjoy!
> 
> -Elena

The hardest part, he will come to realise, is all that’s left behind. Even when the panic sweeps through him in waves it always comes to an end – yet, in the end, there are still remnants that can never fade, stuck in place.

Ash notices his mind drifting elsewhere one evening, nowhere in particular – just elsewhere. The scar on his side is what reminded him. He still isn’t sure if he was supposed to see it, but he remembered it, and he remembered where he is now. He’s in a room, his back pressed against the mattress connected to another man who’s continuously leaving kisses along his face and neck.

The Velvet Underground hums in his ears from the shitty radio sitting on the nightstand. His mind is half paying attention to song it sings and song of moans that string from Eiji’s mouth like a choir. Ash is in his own symphony.

It feels good. It feels better than good. The pleasure is building like a rumbling hurricane before the devastation reigns clear and as bright as day. Eiji comes first, but he continues the rhythm of his body until Ash shortly follows suit. They’ve reached the point to where they can cry out their names and be unashamed to scream in pleasure with shivers carving across their skins. It had been a long time to get here, now that they’re here, they remain.

Eiji still leaves kisses on his skin as if he is entirely porcelain. And when they lay side by side the moonlight provides the only glow across their bodies and highlighting the shattered scars between the two. No words are spoken about it. Only one is thinking about it.

Ash doesn’t sleep with Eiji in the afterglow. Instead, he leaves to the shower in the bathroom next over. The water does not hide these scars.

He learns just how _many_ scars are littered across his body. Every dip and curve it his muscles carry has at least some kind of reminder of a battle he had healed within a rushed timeframe. These scars, these many scars, emphasised by the limelight, only speak to Ash with the horrific reminder that he’s not supposed to be here.

All he can think of now is his world and the world he lives in with Eiji. They do not belong on the same plane. It won’t take long – one day, he’s sure of it, all of this will come to an end.

This is the end that Ash is petrified of the most. He didn’t even deserve to make it this far. He doesn’t even understand how someone can love him in the way Eiji does, and he doesn’t deserve any ounce of this kind of quiet love at all. Ash comes from a world of noise. Japan is a land reminded by silence. _He does not belong here._

Ash Lynx is a monster. Monsters should never be loved and they should absolutely never be treated with any level of capacity Eiji provides. He doesn’t understand any of it. He doesn’t understand any of it at all.

Aslan, on the other hand. Tiny, tiny Aslan—

When he comes out of the shower, it takes him a short while to find the energy where he can climb into some clothes. The wet hair sticks to his cheek and neck – and there’s a moment, where his eyes glide past the foggy mirror, where he does not see neither Ash Lynx nor Aslan Callenreese. He’s found to be caught in some weird body of his own, somewhere so far away from here.

Somewhere so far away from here: the perfect place where he belongs. The perfect place where he will live to never be happy. He doesn’t deserve happy.

When he steps out of the bathroom, he sees Eiji there, sleeping quietly with the moonlight raised slightly now to where it illuminates his gently closed eyes. He is an angel of the quiet life, an amazing grace of light shrouded in dark hair and dark eyes that somehow held onto being so magnificently bright.

His hair hides his face, and Ash reaches forward to stroke it past his ear, but he stops, fingers just above the bone of his temple, and he swallows hard. Eiji is too delicate for his fingers. Despite where they just where – despite how literally a half hour prior Ash was crying out to him with his thumbs digging into his sides, he thinks on it now and realises that Eiji does not deserve this kind of life with him.

He doesn’t deserve to touch him. He doesn’t deserve Eiji’s touch. He doesn’t deserve this quiet life. He doesn’t deserve any form of love.

When the tears prick at the corners of his eyes, he leaves. He steps outside of the room and onto their little balcony where he looks off into the world with uncertainty. He’s not necessarily quiet in this action, but he is not loud, either – what is loud, however, is the reigning sadness that is purging out the life in Ash from all sides.

The sobs come quietly, and he has to hide these cries in his hands in the slight off chance Eiji could hear from the balcony. The glass door is closed, but glass does not try to conceal nor hide. The glass allows those to look, but it does not provide any fade.

So when Eiji stirs in his sleep and stretches his arm out for Ash, only to be greeted with a mattress that’s cold, he wakes. He opens his eyes and he sees Ash – this beautiful, moonlit Ash – _shaking_ in his arms on the balcony. He sits up, letting his eyes focus and see for just a moment before he realises what’s going on.

Eiji’s quick to push himself out of bed and walk over to the glass. He taps on it softly before he starts to open the door. Ash only has a few seconds to glance and notice before he frantically starts to wipe at his eyes, but it’s never working. He turns his body away, keeping his eyes covered and aiming his sights somewhere so that Eiji does not have to show pity to his face.

“Ash,” Eiji calls quietly, carefully reaching his arms out to him and taking a gentle hold on his shoulders. “Ash. Talk to me.”

“Go back to sleep, Eiji,” Ash heaves, his voice as calm as he can manage. “I’ll meet you there in a minute.”

“Ash, talk to me, please,” he uses his hold to turn him around so they face each other now, despite the tears falling into hands that prevent his reach. “Aslan.”

It’s always his real name that anchors him to the ground. Aslan does not peel his palms from his eyes, but his breath hiccups through weeps. It settles down now to a more mellow kind of sorrow, the kind that sticks after it rains.

“Please,” Eiji tells him quietly, in that wonderful, wonderful voice of his. His hands carefully reach up and take Aslan by his wrists, his grip loose as he gently pulls them down so he could look at his face. “Put down your hands. I see you.”

There’s a moment of light that flickers between Aslan’s eyes. A heartbeat of relief. And despite this, the constant reminder of his battle scars hang high and mighty overtop of his head. “Why do you stay with me?” He asks. “Despite what I am?”

“What do you think you are, Aslan?” Eiji asks, sincere.

“A monster.” Also sincere.

Eiji just shakes his head; he grips tighter onto the wrists now, tugging him forward so he can leave a gentle kiss on his head. “Not to me,” he says. “I see you as you are, and a monster is not what I see.”

Aslan has to breathe through this, chest tightening. “Why do you stay with me?” he asks again. “You didn’t answer it originally.”

This is a moment where Eiji just smiles, letting go of his wrists just so he can glide his hands along Aslan’s dampened cheeks. He keeps his hands cradled on either side of his face now, thumbs chasing away whatever falls from his eyes next.

“Forever,” he said. “Forever,” he means it.

Aslan finds his face now buried into Eiji’s shoulder, his head laying on its side and his grip holding tight onto the man who promised forever. He can feel the heartbeat calm and easy on Eiji’s neck, and it’s a reminder of where they’ve been. It’s a startling course of battle scars that litter across their bodies until their lives meet.

“Forever again,” Eiji says, this time, with a kiss to the stars.

**Author's Note:**

> This absolutely is a shitty ending but I genuinely cannot think of something better so I’m gonna go to bed. I wanted to add a piece of dialogue like “you’re my forever to me” but it wasn’t sounding right so alas. There’s not much else I can say here that wasn’t said in the one up top, haha, but really, thank you so much for reading my stories and supporting me all the way. I don’t know why this one in particular hit hard with me, but I really want to say thank you for reading and enjoying. 
> 
> -Elena


End file.
